expectations

The high school football season is more than a month away, but fans seeking an early preview of teams with top quarterbacks, top receivers and top defensive backs have come to appreciate the annual Edison Battle at the Beach seven-on-seven passing tournament that is taking place on Saturday.

It’s the unofficial kickoff to teams getting serious because so many quality teams compete from 9 a.m. through the early afternoon in Huntington Beach, with food, music and lots of banter among parents. You know how much players like to rise up against players with better “star” rankings than them, and this is the tournament to see it play out.

It’s not about wins and losses — it’s about players testing themselves against great competition. This tournament has built credibility by showcasing teams competing at a high level, then shaking hands afterward.

Mission Viejo has won the last two tournaments at Edison, but the Diablos are spending the summer trying to figure out who will start at quarterback. Sophomore Brett Burnor and senior Nash McElree, a transfer from Texas, are competing. Could coach Chad Johnson really alternate quarterbacks like he did two years ago with Luke Fahey and Drai Trudeau?

“You never know,” he said.

The Trinity League is represented by St. John Bosco, Santa Margarita, Orange Lutheran, JSerra and Servite. Corona Centennial and its new quarterback, Jaden Jefferson, a transfer from L.A. Cathedral, is entered, along with San Diego’s likely No. 1 team, Cathedral Catholic, which boasts the No. 1 player in the state in USC commit Honor Fa’alave-Johnson. His appearance alone should attract plenty of Trojans fans, particularly for the 10:30 a.m. game against the likely No. 1 team in California, St. John Bosco.

Palos Verdes has four-year starter Ryan Rakowski at quarterback and standout defensive back Jalen Flowers. Rancho Cucamonga gets to show off many of its top skill-position players.

One interesting trend is that this tournament will feature some very good tight ends, a position that has become increasingly important in college football and the NFL but not so much in high school football in the era of spread offenses.

Mission Viejo’s Johnson said he has three tight ends with college offers, another rarity. He could join the Rams with his three-tight-end formation. He intends to use them against defenses that use odd-number fronts this fall. One of his most improved players is tight end Luke Karby, a Duke commit. Another is Arizona commit Max Markofski, who is 6 feet 4 and 228 pounds. Santa Margarita has tight end Luke Gazzaniga, a Kansas commit. Jaylin Smalls of Rancho Cucamonga is 6-4, 230 pounds and moving up recruiting boards.

This is the first opportunity for early clues as to how first-year coaches are doing at JSerra, Los Alamitos, Servite, Orange Lutheran, Long Beach Poly and Oaks Christian.

One of the always-interesting scenes is Edison coach Jeff Grady refusing to take the easy road when making the bracket, so he scheduled his team to open up against St. John Bosco at 9 a.m., perhaps hoping the Braves show up a little sleepy. Running back Maliq Allen has returned to the Braves after spending the spring at Inglewood.

Ocean View also is hosting a 32-team passing tournament in Huntington Beach on Saturday. San Clemente, San Juan Hills, Huntington Beach, Downey and Carson are the teams to watch.

Fearsome duo

Long Beach Poly might have the most decorated cornerback duo in JuJu Johnson, a UCLA commit, and Donte Wright, a Miami commit. Just watching them cover receivers on Saturday at Edison should be a highlight in itself. Johnson was injured last season, but few have raised their profile in the offseason more than him.

Poly is in Pool C and the duo gets to take on receivers from Capistrano Valley, San Diego Lincoln, Servite and Santa Margarita.

King/Drew fearing no one

King/Drew players participating in the Simi Valley tournament.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

This has been a fruitful summer for King/Drew of the City Section. The Golden Eagles have been driving around willing to play seven-on-seven against top Southern Section opponents, including visits to West Hills and Simi Valley.

It’s the same strategy Carson and Birmingham have taken to prepare for City Section play during the regular season. If you can compete with Southern Section teams, then you’ll do just fine against City Section opponents.

Makeo Smith, a 6-4, 265-pound sophomore lineman, figures to receive lots of attention after contributing as a freshman.

May 25 (UPI) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio tamped down expectations Monday for progress toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz after signaling a day earlier that he might have “good news” within hours.

Speaking to reporters at India’s Palam Air Base in New Delhi on Monday, the United States’ top diplomat said an agreement was “still a work in progress.”

“We thought we might have some news last night, maybe today,” he said, adding the holdup is that it takes time to hear back from the Iranians.

“I’m very confident — we should all be very confident — that we’re either going to have a good agreement or we’re going to have to deal with it another way. We’d prefer to have a good agreement.”

The United States is seeking to have Iran restore shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz before negotiations enter a subsequent phase focused on Iran’s nuclear program.

Rubio said what is on the table for opening the strait is “pretty solid,” but there is “a very real, significant time limit” to negotiations on the nuclear issue.

“Hopefully, we can pull it off,” he said.

Rubio is in India until Tuesday to discuss energy security, trade and defense cooperation with senior Indian officials. Meanwhile, U.S.-Iran negotiations have been ongoing through Pakistani and Qatari mediators.

After reporters that negotiations were edging toward completion, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson later Monday said that talks were focused on ending the war, with no discussions yet on its nuclear enrichment program, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

The spokesperson also voiced skepticism over U.S. reliability, stating there is no guarantee Washington will hold up its end of the agreement once one is reached.

Speaking alongside Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at a joint press conference on Sunday, Rubio said that he believed more news about the agreement would come from President Donald Trump.

“But I do think perhaps there is the possibility that over the next few hours the world will get some good news, at least with regards to the straits,” he said.

The on-again, off-again negotiations have been conducted amid a fragile cease-fire called in April in the war that began in late February.

Trump has sought a new agreement to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon since 2018, when during his first administration he unilaterally withdrew the United States from a landmark Obama-era multinational nuclear accord called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Calling it “defective at its core,” Trump has criticized several aspects of the JCPOA, including its sunset provisions easing restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.

Critics have rebutted his accusations, saying that not all aspects of the JCPOA were to expire and that the expiring provisions afforded time were intended to afford time for further diplomacy.

Before arriving for his high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, United States President Donald Trump aimed to set expectations high.

He said he would urge Xi to “open up” China’s economy and announced a delegation of top business executives, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, to accompany him.

As Trump and Xi prepare to wrap up two days of meetings on Friday, the expectations for their summit’s outcome among observers generally are modest at best.

While Trump and Xi are anticipated to extend the one-year pause in their trade war agreed to in South Korea in October, the expectations are for a stabilisation – not revitalisation – in ties between the world’s two largest economies, which are locked in a rivalry that spans everything from trade and artificial intelligence to the status of Taiwan.

“It is important to be clear-eyed about the state of relations here,” Claire E Reade, a senior counsel at Arnold & Porter who previously worked on China at the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), told Al Jazeera.

“China does not trust the US, and China wants to beat the US in what it sees as long-term global competition,” Reade said.

“This limits what can be agreed.”

While Trump and Xi have yet to announce the final contours of any trade agreement, the US side has flagged various business deals in the pipeline.

In a pre-recorded interview with Fox News that aired on Thursday, Trump said that China would invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” in companies run by the CEOs in his delegation, without providing further details.

Trump also said that Beijing had agreed to purchase US oil and 200 Boeing aircraft.

Trump administration officials have said that the sides are also discussing the establishment of a “Board of Investment” to manage investments between the countries.

“A realistic ‘opening up’ of the Chinese market would likely focus first on sectors where the economic complementarity is most obvious,” Taiyi Sun, an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, told Al Jazeera.

“Agricultural goods such as soybeans and beef, as well as high-value-added manufacturing products like Boeing aircraft, are natural areas for expansion because they match existing Chinese demand with American export strengths.”

Sun said a “gradual” opening for US firms in sectors such as financial services could also be possible.

“But those areas are politically and institutionally more sensitive inside China, so progress would likely be incremental rather than immediate,” he said.

Gabriel Wildau, a senior vice president at global business advisory firm Teneo, said both sides will be seeking to address supply-chain vulnerabilities exposed by their trade war.

“The Iran war has likely increased the US’s vulnerability to export controls on rare earths, given the need to rebuild the munition stocks depleted in that war,” Wildau told Al Jazeera.

“Washington will therefore be willing to offer tariff relief – or at least assurances not to impose new tariffs – in exchange for Beijing’s commitment to keep rare earth exports flowing.”

While Trump and Xi agreed to roll back some trade barriers at their summit in South Korea, US-Chinese business and trade remain severely constrained after a decade of tit-for-tat economic salvoes between the sides.

The average US tariff on Chinese goods stood at 47.5 percent after the South Korea summit, up from 3.1 percent before Trump’s first term, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

China’s average tariff on US goods stood at 31.9 percent, up from 8.4 percent in 2018, according to the think tank.

Two-way goods trade amounted to about $415bn in 2025, down sharply from its 2022 peak of $690bn.

Carsten Holz, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said China has less incentive to make concessions to the US than before, amid the rise of its domestic industries.

“Across many industrial sectors, PRC [People’s Republic of China] firms hold leading or controlling positions,” Holz told Al Jazeera.

“As a result, the PRC economy has little to gain from opening further to the US and is likely to only offer largely symbolic gestures.”

Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, voiced similar sentiments about the limits of US leverage.

“Basically, Trump expects China to buy more stuff from America and let US companies operate more freely in China,” Elms told Al Jazeera.

“What is he offering?” Elms said. “Very little, largely because Trump sees the bilateral relationship as one where the US has been fair and China has not.”

Reade, the former USTR official, said Xi would not agree to any measures that “harm Chinese interests in any way.”

“Instead, China will potentially give the US no-cost ‘gifts,’” Reade said, suggesting such measures could include the removal of trade barriers it placed on US beef.

“It may buy US goods it needs,” Reade said.

“If it allows purchases of US tech products, it will only be because it needs them right now,” she added, “But this does not interfere with China’s strategic plans to eliminate dependence on US technology over the longer term.”